Memorial Day marks the time we remember those who have fallen in service of our country. It’s wonderful that many Americans take time out to honor those who died that we might be free.
One aspect of military service that is often neglected these days is the multitude of official prayers and acknowledgments of God through the two and a half centuries of America as a nation.
The late Col. Ronald D. Ray of Kentucky served in the Vietnam War with great valor. His funeral post notes: “During the Tet Offensive and other campaigns … he was twice awarded the Silver Star for conspicuous gallantry, a Bronze Star with V device and a Purple Heart.”
I got to interview Ron many years ago in his Kentucky law office, where he would sometimes cross swords with the ACLU. That legal group likes to claim that they are merely trying to make America abide by what the founders intended with the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Critics, like the late Col. Ray, would counter-argue that the founders gave us freedom of religion, whereas groups like the ACLU are trying to impose freedom from religion.
There’s a huge difference. Freedom of religion allows diverse viewpoints, including religious ones, in the public square. Freedom from religion creates what the late Richard John Neuhaus called“the naked public square.”
The founders created One Nation Under God. The secularists are trying to turn America into a secular wasteland.
Col. Ray and his wife, Eunice, put together an excellent book (with the help of Dr. Linda Jeffrey), entitled, “Endowed By Their Creator: A Collection of Historic American Military Prayers 1774 – Present” (First Principles Press, 2012).
For example, Ray writes that John Adams, our second president, “led the military committee that drew up the two first principles of the American military, which are 1) Exemplary Conduct; and 2) Daily Prayer.”
Thus, in the “Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies” (1775), Adams stated in Article 2, “The Commanders of the ships of the Thirteen United Colonies, are to take care that divine service be performed twice a day on board, and a sermon preached on Sundays, unless bad weather or other extraordinary accidents prevent it.”
Adams, considered by many to be the father of the American Navy, did not see it fit to banish God from the public arena, including the military. In fact, quite the opposite was the case.
Article 3 has language that might make even a hardened sailor blush: “If any shall be heard to swear, curse or blaspheme the name of God, the Captain is strictly enjoined to punish them for every offence. … He who is guilty of drunkenness (if a seaman) shall be put in irons until he is sober, but if an officer, he shall forfeit two days’ pay.”
Prayer? Divine services? No blasphemy or drunkenness? We might do a double-take, but that’s what one of our key Founding Fathers wrote about our military.
George Washington, the father of our country, made similar declarations to his army on July 9, 1776, when he had the newly approved Declaration of Independence first read to the troops.
Part of Gen. Washington’s reasoning was that, since the odds against our armed forces were so stacked, the last thing we want to do is to offend Almighty God – whose help we most desperately need: “The blessing and protection of Heaven are at all times necessary but especially so in times of public distress and danger – The General hopes and trusts, that every officer, and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”
Many of us know the first verse of the Navy Hymn, which begins, “Eternal Father, Strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave …”
What most of us have never heard is the second verse of this 1860 hymn by William Whiting, which recalls Jesus’ time of calming the tempestuous sea.
That verse reads: “O Christ! Whose voice the waters heard, And hushed their raging at Thy word, Who walked’st on the foaming deep, and calm amidst its rage didst sleep; Oh hear us when we cry to Thee, For those in peril on the sea!”
It is amazing how secularized modern America has become. The history books have been rewritten, and God has been erased. I’m glad for Col. Ray compiling a collection of military prayers and hymns showing our true history.
And on this Memorial Day, we should remember the faith that helped give birth to this nation in the first place, and to thank God for those brave men and women who, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “gave the last full measure of devotion” on the battlefield – that we might be free as a nation.